Discussion

Can any of you experts identify the brand of this pan please?

It's from a clip in the fantastic Masterchef: The Professionals tv series that showed late last year. It was the kind of introductory clip they played before M Roux would show one of his classic recipes for them to try and emulate. I paused an episode on iPlayer to get the photo below.

Not sure that it is De Buyer, or Mauviel for that matter, though unless I'm not aware of this line of product. It looks like a well-used copper saute, that's clear, but the handle looks flatter/wider than the standard cast iron handle you get on a lot of copper cookware, doesn't it?

Any help would be much appreciated, someone I know really wants one as a present but I can't seem to find it anywhere!

To some extent I think the handle looks a bit wider than it really is due to the camera angle. I can't see that pan well enough to even hazard a serious guess as to it's brand, but I do think my Mauviel saucepan would a lot like that one if photographed from a similar angle.

Edit: I was just poking around on the Mauviel website a bit and it looks like the handles on the "M'heritage 150C" line might be a little flatter than some of their others, which would also make them appear wider, too.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to tell. It looks vintage to me, machine-turned, perhaps unplanished. So you're looking at something that is IMO c1900-1940. It's not necessarily French, either. If that is true, the maker could have been any one of many, e.g., Jacquotot, Gaillard, Jaeggi, Elkington, Benham & Froud, Mora, Belgique, one of the old European makers in several countries. For that matter, it could be American: Bramhall Range, American Range, Duparquet, Barth, etc. Even if a knowledgeable collector held it in their hands, they might not be able to identify the maker without a mark, but if we could see the handle flange and rivets, one could hazard an educated guess.

Your OP points up what I think is a very important lesson: Aside from a collector's perspective, *it doesn't matter* what the brand is. If it's sound, thick, well-assembled and -proportioned, and the handle is ergonomic, it's a treasure regardless of maker. I shake my head sometimes when I see a table-service Mauviel fetch hundreds on eBay, while vintage premier-grade pans with no mark go for a song or don't sell at all. These grand old pans can remain enigmas, and they're still just as grand. Perhaps like women, they're more beautiful if they retain a little mystery.

Thanks Kaleo, you seem to know your stuff. Do you know if it's possible to get copper sautes with strip steel handles, like you see on a lot of (if not all), say, black iron pans? They all seem to have the bulky cast iron, I can't seem to find any that have the plain and simple strip steel.

Strip steel handles? Not that I'm aware of. There was a line of $$$ copperware called Taverna by a Danish designer Georg Jensen that was sold in the 1970s that employed SS handles stamp-formed from sheetstock. Occasionally you will find strip handles on thin early American and European pans (and more widely on lollipop lids),but they are almost always wrought iron.

I have to ask: Why would you want strip handles? The bulk and weight of stout cast iron handles bring several advantages, not the least of which is rigid strength. Looking again at the photo, I'm not sure the handle isn't cast.

Thanks Kaleo. Strip steel, I guess, just because it looks simpler and the lighter weight makes the pan a bit more versatile. I see what you mean from the photo, could be cast. This has become quite a challenge to find out what this pan is. The BBC, who made the programme, don't have an email address for these kind of random queries, so maybe we'll never know! Have taken a look at your suggestions and the Gaillard stuff looks fantastic.

This looks a lot like your mystery pan (except for the loop handle), but the handles are brass, not steel. It could be the lighting in the photo. Hard to say with the oven window and all.

Stamped steel is cheap but much easier to bend or break than cast iron or brass. I'd be surprised if any maker used it on a high quality copper pan intended to last generations. And if this is your pan, note the thickness (1 to 2 mm). I wonder which areas are 1 mm thick. A good copper pan will be 2 to 2.5 mm throughout. I don't know if it's an industry standard, but according to the Mauviel web site, cast iron is used for handles on their thickest pans, stainless on the mid-grade, and bronze on the thinnest.

Great find Zeldog, appreciate your effort. Could well be brass. I see what you mean - if you're going to manufacture a copper pan, might as well put on an expensive handle too. I just think the strip steel style of handle you get on the cheaper, work horses of the kitchen, the carbon steel pans, looks better.

The pan in the picture is definitely copper isn't it? Think it's possible to get the strip steel handle on aluminium/ss straight-walled sautes?

Thanks for your input sbp. I'm not sure it's anymore a Bourgeat than it is a Mauviel or a De Buyer - they're pretty much all the same aren't they? There's no curve in before the hole in the end of the handle, if anything, the handle looks like it gets ever so slightly wider all the way along doesn't it...maybe the photo's distorted, I don't know.

I agree that the pan in the OP may be a bourgeat, but I only their lower end line, available at sears online and pictured below (though the handle seems to have gentle concave contour all along it's length, which I think makes it less likely to be the pan in the OP).

I do not believe the pan in the OP to be a matfer bourgeat professional line pan as you have pictured, because the countour of the loop is flared/rounded in the professional line (see the picture attached). Also, the pro line of bourgeat has a curled lip, but the pan in the OP does not.